Saturday, February 25, 2017

It is the same as sending the homeless and sick to Los Angeles

Vast liabilities are being switched quietly from private banks and investment funds onto the shoulders of taxpayers across southern Europe. It is a variant of the tragic episode in Greece, but this time on a far larger scale, and with systemic global implications. There has been no democratic decision by any parliament to take on these fiscal debts, rapidly approaching €1 trillion. They are the unintended side-effect of quantitative easing by the European Central Bank, which has degenerated into a conduit for capital flight from the Club Med bloc to Germany, Luxembourg, and The Netherlands. This 'socialisation of risk' is happening by stealth, a mechanical effect of the ECB's Target 2 payments system. If a political upset in France or Italy triggers an existential euro crisis over coming months, citizens from both the eurozone's debtor and creditor countries will discover to their horror...

German banks hold a shitload of Club Med bonds that are unpayable. Club Med millennials, if they have any, are looking at a fixed sequence of payments to Germany for infinity, courtesy of the inflexible central bank system. German taxpayers have gone through this, they price the risk these days. So soon the road and rubber are going to have a get-together.It is a war crime, especially labor pricing not working well when a fixed payroll tax is imposed with no future amortization path.